


I Felt The Same Way.

by PigeonsToCrows



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Angst, M/M, Sad, arcade is sad and doesn't know how to feelings, it's preestablished, the courier is also very vague, the death isn't described at all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-29 21:17:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6394204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PigeonsToCrows/pseuds/PigeonsToCrows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The stoic blonde was silent as he walked, eyes sharp and focused and lips pulled into a neutral line. It wasn’t exactly that he didn’t have anything on his mind, in fact, it was quite the contrary. The researcher’s mind was racing with achingly upset thoughts, things that had more than once made tears fall from sad, green eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Felt The Same Way.

**Author's Note:**

> It's 3 am and I took some nyquil, so this may not be the best. It was written to a prompt that is the same as the title.

Dust plumed upwards as worn leather boots continued down an invisible, yet distinctly present, path in the hot desert. Arcade’s comfortably familiar lab coat billowed out behind him with each step, long ends flapping quietly against the wind and briefly slapping his thighs. Lightly tanned fingers were curled into loose fists at his sides, palms calloused, not from years of working in the Followers camp, but the time spent carrying unfamiliar weaponry and traveling the Mojave, though the damage was hardly noticeable by now.

The stoic blonde was silent as he walked, eyes sharp and focused and lips pulled into a neutral line. It wasn’t exactly that he didn’t have anything on his mind, in fact, it was quite the contrary. The researcher’s mind was racing with achingly upset thoughts, things that had more than once made tears fall from sad, green eyes. Images of the past that left him hurting and sorry at absurdly late hours of the night, spent alone and vulnerable in his tent at the Old Mormon Fort, clutching a pillow to his chest as he choked on his own sobs.

Today was not the day for these thoughts to render him bedridden and unresponsive to his responsibilities, however. He had promised himself that the last time he’d thought about skipping out on this, pretending that he didn’t have to do this, that it never happened or that it didn’t bother him anymore. That he had finally been able to move on and forget about it- all of it. The sting, the hurt, the anguish. The banter, the flirting, the fuzzy feeling deep in the pit of his stomach and the irresistible pull at the corners of his lips. 

He had forced himself to crush the desire to forget everything about him. 

At first, he had tried to rationalize his pining for the other man’s presence. Arcade was a man of science and of reason, so he was aware of the idea that you don’t ever miss someone themselves; you miss what it was that that someone did. You miss how they made you feel, what they did for you, what they did with you, everything that directly affected you. The blonde attempted vainly to convince himself that anyone was capable of doing what the Courier did for him, that he was no one special.

Regardless of what he would like to believe, he couldn’t possibly convince himself that there was anyone else out in the wasteland that could even try to rival what the Courier had become. There was no way that someone else could accomplish what he had, because it was miraculous that he had been able to pull any of it off himself. Even more so, there was no one else who could make Arcade feel the way he did whenever they were together.

No one was like his Courier.

That was why he was here, walking purposefully through the bleak desert, skin hot from the baking sun and feet tired from the long treck. It was getting darker now, the sun slowly crawling down the sky and behind the edge of the horizon, dying everything in a warm orange glow that would soon transform into a deep, inky hue. It didn’t matter, the time, because the blonde knew he could probably venture here with his eyes closed, if he had to. He’d do whatever it took to get here.

Arcade stopped in his place once he reached a spot where the red, mountainous rocks rose high above him, a parting where the rock face would normally be smooth. Taking a few final inhales of the hot air around him, his eyes peered through the narrow opening, meeting with the familiar spot within. He slid past the rock and into the small, peaceful clearing, and he stood with a rigid posture as he looked down at the grave just a few feet away from him.

It was so familiar, almost picturesque, that it made him frown and clench his fists more tightly. A cross, made out of the most presentable boards that he could find, was stuck into the soft earth; a small, yet distinct, number six carved into the meeting point of the pieces of wood. On the ground next to the grave marker lay a few very recognizable possessions, things that the Courier had held dear to himself, though the most eye catching one was his Pip-Boy.

Arcade’s fingers moved forwards to touch the device, fingers brushing away a thin layer of dust that had settled over the screen, as he crouched down onto his knees. His eyes were level with the top of the cross now, and he let them shut gently as his hands found themselves curling in the dirt, cooled by the shadow that enveloped the clearing, cast by the rocky walls around it.

When he spoke, chapped lips parting almost unwillingly, sticking together from the lack of use, he almost stuttered. He avoided it, voice surprisingly even, despite the way his chest clenched and his throat ached. He had been scared that he wouldn’t know what to say once he had arrived, but he found that the words flowed so simply past his lips that it was almost comical in some morbid way, and it made him smile bitterly as his eyes stung with the threat of tears spilling from them.

“I felt the same way.”


End file.
